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We're all spies in a way

15 October 2012

'We're all spies in a way'

'Spies allow a novelist to heighten what all novels do anyway, which is control the flow of information. They allow limitless possibilities of tangled plot; they carry with them a hint of danger, which I think we rather love, from the perspective of our rather safe lives. Historically, we are safer than we've ever been. It's my theory that the reason we're getting such amazing thrillers from the social democracies of Scandinavia is because they've got such low crime rates. They dream of danger, and they dream it very well. Or you could say that I guess we're all spies in a way. We can't wear the entirety of our hearts on our sleeves, and novels have always been good at exploiting the difference between the inner and outer self.'

Ian McEwan, whose latest novel is Sweet Tooth, in The Times